2016.07.06 14:48 "Re: [Tiff] Proposed API improvements", by Bob Friesenhahn

I think it proves the point: Applications fail to support reading tiles because there are currently two incompatible APIs, one for tiled and one for stripped tiffs. Some developers simply don't bother implementing both.

Maybe I wasn't clear enough, but the proposed solution *does not* introduce a third interface. What I proposed is to make the tiled interface a universal one, so that future applications can use it exclusively. The strip interface may be declared deprecated, pointing to the tiled interface, or even made read tiled tiffs as stripped. There is only one new function proposed, which maps all the different tag names to uniform tile size.

Applications won't really "switch" to anything. Instead those willing to use the new functionality will just pretend that all tiffs are tiled and benefit from simplified logic in their code.

Libtiff has been in use for 28 years already. Most of the applications which will use it are written already and the persons who wrote the interfacing code (or know how to do so) may not be available any more. Deprecating primary interfaces will not happen. Introducing additional improved interfaces is not a problem as long as they are well designed. If the additional interfaces offer enough benefits then they will eventually be used.

Bob
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Bob Friesenhahn
bfriesen@simple.dallas.tx.us, http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen/
GraphicsMagick Maintainer, http://www.GraphicsMagick.org/